Pros: Interesting, Simplistic, Challenging
Cons: Not for Older Children

Yoshi's Story is a story of the "Yoshis" trying to find the "Happy Tree" which baby Bowser has taken from them. This program is not only incredibly easy to understand for young children, but there is no gory violence and the graphics are great and simplistic.

We have personally owned this title for quite a while and my 6 year old still plays with it.

I would not recommend this program for older children as they will beat the game too fast and become quite bored; however, for younger children, it is just perfect with regard to simplicity and story line.

The user picks from different colored Yoshis to take with them in a world to beat. If your Yoshi loses all of its flower petals (strength), you are then taken back to the Yoshi screen to pick a different colored Yoshi.

Goals of the Game:

1) If the user beats the "chapter," the "page turns" and the Yoshis "get happier" and another chapter in the story is presented to the user.

2) For a user to beat a world within the story, they must collect fruit. Once they have collected and filled the screen with fruit, they have conquered the world.

Even though Yoshi's Story is simplistic, it is also quite challenging for younger children. In the worlds, there are times when Yoshi needs to shoot eggs at, lick or jump over the enemies. With regard to enemies, the user is presented with comical dragons, bees and a variety of other characters. There are also big holes in the ground Yoshi must jump over as well as underwater caverns that Yoshi must swim through to complete the game.

The graphics presented in this program are unique. The background in some of the worlds looks like stitched denim and the colors are pastel. Other worlds have sky backgrounds with puffy clouds and underwater caverns with rocks and water.

Yoshi's Story is not complicated and there is no gory violence. The story presented is very easy to understand and the worlds are not long and drawn out. Even though I would not recommend this program for older children, Yoshi's Story is very entertaining and simplistic for younger children.

There are not enough children's programs for the Nintendo 64 that are actually interesting and challenging; however, Yoshi's Story does make the mark.